Waiting in the shadows
by thebattleangel
Summary: Life was never easy on Shelby. Born into a legendary Vampire hunter family, her parents resented her from birth, the only reason being her gender that wasn't desirable in their eyes. Her mother been taken and her father the cause of his own demise, she fought tooth and nail to restore her families legacy. However as she walks down her chosen path, the hunter becomes the hunted.


_**The character Alucard Hellsing belongs to Kouta Hirano. I don't own any part of the anime or manga. So go ahead and read on :) and do enjoy! **_

Chapter one – disappointments and realities.

Shelby stood under the cool evening sky, not a breeze dared to hinder the flame of her match as she lit her cigarette taking a long awaited puff. She watched lazily as the cloud she exhaled rolled into the black eternity above her, filled with creatures the human eye couldn't see. She had been born into a family of well known vampire hunters and at her birth her parents resented her. The reason being quite simple, they had longed for a son to continue with their legendary bloodline, thinking a female to be inappropriate to carry the title of the family. Taking another long drag she sighed. How many years she had fought for the affection of her parents when they seemed to focus it on her nephew. It was not her choice to be born into the world and she didn't choose her undesirable gender either.

As she grew older she had faced many challenges of womanhood alone as at the tender age of thirteen her mother was cruelly taken from the world in a vampire attack. After her mother's tragic death, her father started gambling and drinking heavily, he threw the families name down the toilet as he ever so "gracefully" threw his life away. Shelby watched as her younger siblings were taken away, leaving only her behind as a painful reminder to her father. He became a danger to himself and society and in so his assassination was ordered and covered up to look like a suicide. They never knew he had a daughter still living with him.

The morning she found him was a day forever engraved in her mind. She had woken up to the loud rumble of thunder as it was one of Transylvania's legendary storms that had hit, originally been from London they had moved to take residence in a family home passed down from generation to generation when her father learnt the news of his hunting. How they had managed to locate them is what Shelby would never understand. The rain ran in thin streams down the window panes making it look as though the ancient, portrait covered walls were crying. The marble floors were icy beneath her feet and the feint sound of her footsteps echoed off the walls. She walked to the double doors of her father's room placing her hand on the cold brass handle. Slowly she opened the heavy oak door to find her father's bed empty. The air in the room smelt odd, the smell of warm blood permeated her sensitive nostrils as she stepped towards the bottom of the bed. Slowly she peered over the opposite side into the lifeless eyes of her father. She was only sixteen at the time of his death.

After the burial of her father alongside her mother she had moved back to London to take up her rightful place as the last living head of her family, the last rightful vampire hunter when she was called upon to hunt for one specific vampire no known human, vampire hunter had ever destroyed. The legendary Alucard Hellsing, an immortal man feared by many he had become a lifestyle as only the drunk ventured into the streets after sunset. She had spent many years hunting vampires successfully, trying to restore her families' name with each waking day and she was doing one hell of a good job at it. She looked down at the folder she had been given with the information on the man, though she had noticed, they couldn't provide her with much. A photograph of him caught her attention as she lifted in from its clip to admire it. Two lifeless eyes stared at her filled with some deep, tragic hatred that could not be summed up by words alone. A cruel Cheshire cat grin revealed fangs that had for many years sapped the life from innocent beings, but not once did Shelby for a splitting second believe anything she was told. She was a stubborn young woman who wanted to see things for herself to prove the hype wrong.

Something about his eyes fascinated her, it reminded her of her own in an odd sense. She absent mindedly ran a hand through her long silver hair. The sorrowful cry of a bird broke her attention on the picture as she looked up again at the sky above her, little did she realize that the hunter would become the hunted.

She stood up from her crouching position to find a luxurious red coat before her a gloved hand attached to the picture she held onto. Two amber eyes were met by two deep red ones as she glared at the man in front of her. Pulling a knife from her pouch on her thigh she tried to slash at the man only to have her wrist grabbed and pinned above her head.

"Why do you seek me woman." His voice was deep and velvety as he lent over her as the words left his lips.

"Well isn't that a rhetorical question, I should be asking you the same thing, Alucard." The words lingered between them, coated in venom as the left her lips. The tall vampire gave a devilish chuckle leaning down closer to her face.

"You have hunted me for many years you silly woman, and each time I show up willing to be killed by your hand, this is the end result." He motioned the length of her body up and down with his free hand cupping her cheek when he was done.

She couldn't deny it, her stubborn side had landed her in her current predicament and what he said was true, she only had herself to curse and blame for being unable to kill him. She knew he wanted it but that was the part she had disagreed with, she wasn't one for mercy killings, it just wasn't her thing, and getting to know the vampire had led to some rather unfavorable situations.

"You know they'll all see me as a traitor to my own kind Alucard so why taunt me so." Shelby groaned in frustration as his cold lips brushed against the warm flesh of her neck.

"You still decline my offer I made you my dearest. It is a pity, you would make a fine edition to the vampire community, especially when it comes to helping me kill them, you know I still do what you do Shelby so why see me as the monster all the others see me as when all I am is a humble servant carrying out my masters will?" he purred in her ear.

"You fool that makes you no more than a puppet, to be discarded of when your master no longer needs you." Her voice was now a low growl. She was eighteen when she was first set onto Alucard's trail and since then it had been a constant game of cat and mouse between the two of them. She sighed in mild frustration looking at the man before her, how badly she had yearned for him in the middle of the night, but he never came when he had promised her he would return to her.

Alucard watched the rising and falling of her chest with fascination, he listened to the steady beating of her heart and reveled in the warmth of her skin. It was what he wanted, he wanted to be enveloped in her warmth, but he feared that if anything blossomed from their little games it would be detrimental on her behalf as she kept refusing his offer. Her reputation never preceded her, she was fierce, ruthless and thorough in the execution of her job, which made him wonder why she couldn't function around him.

Looking down at her one last time he stole a kiss and vanished leaving her where she was, confused and shocked beyond words. Clutching her head she groaned at herself when the feeling of something cold around her neck had caught her attention. Looking down she found an antique looking necklace with a locket. Opening it she found a tiny scroll which she unrolled delicately between her fingertips. Reading it she stared up at the eternal blackness of the night sky and smiled. She knew the harsh reality that stared her in the eye every day, even though she chose not to utter a word of it to a single soul for her own good. No matter what approach she tried she knew she would never be able to reason with herself over the killing of Alucard. As powerful as he was she would only bring herself to bring the man back if he was killed, be it by her or anyone else. She hated herself knowing that if she pursued what she was feeling inside she would b the greatest disappointment in her family even though the direct links had been eradicated, she would have failed all of them been the last direct head in the blood line.


End file.
